Chauvinism

Chauvinism is the consciousness represented at present by the vast
mass of humanity. This is the position
that one's own tribe/clan/race/gender/culture/sect/religion/country/civilisation
is the best and the the others are inferior. This is the position
of fundamentalistexotericreligions, of New
Age sects and cults and gurus, of
patriotism and nationalism, of racism and sexism, in all it's diverse and
repugnant forms

Chauvinism comes ultimately from a need to belong. One sense that
one's own being is small and limited, one doesn't have the gnosis or spiritual
awakening or sense of love and compassion to embrace all life and all existence,
so one embraces as much as one can encompass, one's tribe, one's family,
one's race, one's country, elevating that secular ideal to the highest
status. or one takes some religion or teaching and assumes that that
is the truest one and all the others suck. And what is behind all
of this is emotional and spiritual immaturity, arrogance and pride, misplaced
loyalty and the infantile need to belong

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying this is necessarily or
always bad. Love of one's country for example, or pride in one's
race or culture, can be a noble thing. Here is an example of a noble
chauvanistic sentiment that I happened to read in the paper. This
is written by a Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, from his
autobiography, Faith of My Fathers (a best-seller in 1999) in which
he relates the greulling ordeal of his captivity as a prisoner of war during
the Vietnam War.

"Ironically, I have never felt more powerfully free, more my
own man, than when I was a small part of an organised resistence to the
power that imprisoned me. Nothing in life is more liberating than
to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you
but is not defined your existence alone."

So it is not a question of that because someone is subservient to some
larger but limited ideal that is automatically "bad." Pride in one's
nation, one's race, one's culture or sub-culture, is the first stage in
awakening to something beyond one's limited ego. Unfortunately the
real danger comes from identifying that small puffed up self-inflated little
ego with the thing one identifies with, and there lies the seeds of all
fanaticism, all persecution, all ontolerance, and all ugliness in human
society

However, there comes a time when it is necessary to go beyond chauvanism,
patriotism, sectarianism, and racism, and embrace the brotherhood/sisterhood
of humanity as a whole. When that is achieved one has made it to
the stage of Anthropocentrism.